The offer
A complete USD card business, under your own brand.
An app for your customers on iPhone and Android, a website for the ones who prefer a laptop, and a dashboard for your staff. Identity checks, wallets and card issuing are all part of it. You own the code, it runs on your servers, and it uses your own card provider account. Most people are open for business in about three weeks.
Book a demoSee what is included
Built by the people who run YeneCard, a live dollar card service in Ethiopia serving 20,000+ customers with 30,000+ cards issued.
On record
This is already running a real business.
Those numbers come from YeneCard, a dollar card business that has been trading in Ethiopia for over two years. It runs on this platform, and it is the same software you would get, not a demonstration version.
The controls
Issuing a card is the easy part.
The things people compare when they shop are the visible ones. Create a card, put money on it, freeze it. Every system sold in this market does those. What separates them is underneath: where the money sits, who is allowed to move it, and whether you can prove what happened afterwards. That is where operators lose money, and it is usually somebody who already had a login.
Most systems
- Every movement written down twiceno
- Who moved it, and whenno
- Staff limited to their own jobone login
- Asked to prove who they are againno
- Money checked against your providerno
- Your provider keys kept out of reachno
You are trusting people
This one
- Every movement written down twicealways
- Who moved it, and whenpermanent
- Staff limited to their own jobby role
- Asked to prove who they are againbefore money moves
- Money checked against your providerevery night
- Your provider keys kept out of reachalways
You are checking them
The distance between those two columns costs nothing on an ordinary day. It costs everything on the day somebody decides to help themselves.
Every night
While everyone is asleep.
At two in the morning the platform reads every live card from your provider and compares it against your own books, one card at a time. Where the two disagree it posts a correction and writes down that it did. You find out on the same night, not at the end of the quarter.
The parts
What you get.
- An app for your customers
- On iPhone and Android, carrying your name and your colours. They sign up, get verified, add money, create a card, watch what they spend, and freeze it if they lose it.
- A website for your customers
- The same thing in a browser, for the people who would rather use a laptop than a phone.
- A dashboard for your staff
- Where your team does the daily work: checking new customers, handling cards, answering questions, watching the money and sending announcements.
- Money that always adds up
- Every movement is written down twice, the way a bank writes it, so a balance is something the system can prove rather than a number sitting in a box. Every night it counts everything again and checks it against your card provider.
- Protection from the inside
- Each member of staff gets only the part of the job they do. Moving money makes them prove who they are a second time. Everything anyone does is written down with their name on it, permanently.
- You are not tied to one provider
- The company that issues your cards can be changed from your dashboard. If they raise their prices or have a bad year, you are not trapped with them.
The screens
Three things, one business.
Your customers get an app and a website. Your staff get a dashboard. All three work off the same set of books, so a balance is the same number no matter who is looking at it or where.
Trust
Your servers. Your keys. Your customers. Your revenue.
Everything runs on machines you control, using your own account with your card provider.
We never touch your customers' money. We never handle the settlement. We never hold their identity documents. We are a software company and not a financial one, on purpose, so every relationship with a bank or a regulator stays yours, and so does every cent you make.
I did not start this to sell software. I started it because I kept watching people buy cheap financial systems from websites, and then watching money leave those systems. Usually it was not an outsider who took it. That is why this platform writes down both sides of every movement and records everything a member of staff does, and it is why I would rather show you the screen where the money gets checked than read you a list of features.
Natnael AdaneFounder, Wanza Labs
The risk
When our provider changed banks, nothing happened.
Our card provider moved to a new bank and changed how their system works. We updated the platform and sent it out. The business running on it carried on taking payments, and its customers noticed nothing at all.
That is the whole story, and that is the point. This happens every year or two, and somebody has to be watching for it.
A platform nobody is maintaining stops taking money on the day the provider changes something. Keeping yours current is what the yearly fee is for.
The move
Already running a card service? Keep everything.
You do not start again from nothing. We bring your existing business across, and your customers never notice that anything underneath them changed.
- Your customers and their passwords, with nobody forced to reset anything
- Their two step login codes
- Their identity checks and documents
- Their existing cards, still working
- Their money, moved across and checked twice
- Their full history of past transactions
We have done this on a business that was already open and trading: 14,000+ customers and 2,500+ identity checks moved across, with every balance checked twice before anybody switched.
Questions
What people ask before they buy.
Do we own it, or are we renting?
You own it. You get the complete code, so you can change it and hire anyone you like to work on it or check it. It is not a subscription we can switch off, and nothing in it is hidden from you.
Can our own staff take money without us knowing?
Not invisibly. Nobody gets a master password that opens everything. Before anyone can move money the system stops and makes them prove who they are again. And every single thing your staff do is written down with their name and the time, permanently, where nobody can erase it. If money moves, you can see who moved it.
Do you ever touch our customers' money?
Never. The money sits in your own account with your card provider, under keys that belong to you. We have no way to reach it, and no way to reach your customers' documents either. That was a deliberate choice, because holding either one would make us a financial company, and we did not want to be one.
Which card companies can we use?
Strowallet today, with a second one being added. Changing or adding a provider is a small piece of work rather than rebuilding your business, because the platform was built expecting providers to change.
How long until we are open? Really?
About three weeks, and it is worth saying why that is not a sales number. Nothing is being built for you, because the software already exists and already runs. Week one we put it on your servers. Week two we connect your card provider and test real cards. Week three we put your brand on it and send the apps to Apple and Google. The part nobody controls is app store approval, usually days and occasionally two weeks. If you are bringing existing customers across, add three to five weeks, because moving people's real money is done slowly and checked twice.
What does it cost to run each month?
Your servers, which for a normal business is a modest bill, plus whatever your card provider charges you. We charge for the software and for keeping it up to date. We take nothing from your customers' transactions, ever.
What does it cost to buy?
Starting fresh is $25,000. Bringing an existing business across is $40,000, because moving real money and real customers is careful work. Keeping it up to date is a separate yearly fee. You get an exact number on the call, once we know which of the two you are.
The ask
Twenty minutes is enough.
We will show you the app working on a real business, open the staff dashboard behind it, and answer whatever you want to ask. No slideshow.
What happens after you write
- You get a reply the same working day.
- We send three short questions, mostly about whether you are already trading.
- We book thirty minutes and show you the real thing.
- If it fits, you get a written price within two days.
- Emailnatnael@wanzalabs.com
- WhatsApp+251 923 759 362
- Based inAddis Ababa, working across Africa